abstract |
COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March
11, 2020. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States was in February
2020 and by mid-March, all 50 states, Washington D.C., and four U.S. territories had
reported cases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). The CDC and WHO
reported many ways to combat the spread of COVID-19; one prominent way was
wearing a face mask, an effective yet inexpensive way to stop transmission of infection.
However, many people were still choosing to not wear a mask when they were out in
public, including in states that required face coverings.
The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of what impacts
people's views of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic and their mask-wearing
behavior in the United States. Previous research established the efficacy of mask-wearing
as well as the importance of political ideology in predicting who will wear a mask.
However, less was known about predictors of people's mask-wearing behavior in the
United States specifically in response to COVID-19. This study examined political
ideology, belief in science, tendency toward conformity, and levels of empathy in
predicting mask-wearing behavior. An online questionnaire was distributed using
Amazon mTurk, and consisted of demographic questions as well as the Face Mask
Perception Scale, Belief in Science Scale, COVID Attitude Networks Survey, Ideological
Consistency Scale, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the Social Conformity Versus
Autonomy Scale.
The data suggest that participants, on average, reported a tendency to find mask-
wearing somewhat uncomfortable, but knew where to find masks and could do so
somewhat conveniently; participants were only slightly bothered by the appearance or
attention that mask-wearing created. Participants also reported moderate to high levels of
empathy and favored autonomy over conformity. Politically, participants were slightly
more moderate to liberal than conservative, and reported a moderate to high belief in
science. Political ideology was a predictor of a majority of the mask-wearing variables,
with liberals more likely to follow public health guidelines about mask-wearing and to
report fewer concerns and less discomfort with those policies; moderates tended towards
similar beliefs as conservatives when it came to almost every variable except for belief in
science, where they were more similar to liberals. Future research should use a larger and
more representative sample as well as questions that are lower in face validity to examine
the original hypotheses. It could also focus on groups that do not fall along the behavioral
lines of their political ideology, like college students or conservatives who are getting
vaccinated and wearing masks, or how to incentivize those who are less inclined to get
inoculated.
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